Feb 13, 2011
50/50
The 440 is my race and I could own it outright if I were going up against the snails in my weight bracket like Donnie Tilsbury or Sid ‘Legs’ Wenton or even Sal Swann who runs like a fast four year old girl but fucking Coach Walters decided to put Dave McDonald in the race and the only other event I’m in and it’s going to be iffy. I’m running as a Junior but McDonald’s an Intermediate – shit, he’s a Senior as far as I’m concerned - he’s got a full beard for Christ’s sake. Coach Walters can’t run anything except his mouth and he dribbled some bullshit about not enough runners in Junior to be competitive so he stuck McDonald who’s a good ten pounds heavier in there. I might have a chance in the 440 but I swear I’ll be toast when that 880 comes around. We’re running at the high school arena with that rickety circular track… God, I can feel it now, the boards shuddering under my feet, the jeering crowd right on top of us, my legs like rubber bands after the first curve and my lungs collapsing and bailing as McDonald makes his move to the inside like a gazelle and then disappearing around the final turn… man that guy can fly. There’s an outside chance Walters will let me bump down to Primary, get up against some first year doe-eyed farm boy challenger trying to make a mark and allow me a chance to deal out an old McDonald on his sorry ass.
Rubber Soul
Sometimes, right in the middle of class, a light will go on and I’ll come up with a perfect name for my band. Like during Science yesterday while old Pickell was flying all over the chalkboard like a maniac drawing up charts with colored chalk, this popped into my head: Orange Appeel. I love names like that, like the Beatles Rubber Soul or Strawberry Alarm Clock, Electric Prunes, Iron Butterfly, Moby Grape. Ha, we’ll wear orange - that’s the appeal man! - like orange colored socks or ties though truthfully I don’t like oranges much since they give me canker sores and taste kind of sour and ties make my neck itch. Maybe I can find an orange guitar, yeah, an orange Rickenbacker like the guy in the Byrds only his is yellow but that’s cool and I bet if I let him in the band, my friend John who’s a good artist will draw up some posters in that crazy Fillmore-type lettering style I saw in Rolling Stone. I’m almost as excited as Mr. Pickell up there, randomly scribbling zippy arrows and complex formulas like C5H8 with different color chalk; I have to give him credit though for loving something with such passion, even if it is just science.
Wellington Crescent
Sometimes when it’s real rainy, the stairs get slippery and my books slide around like madmen so I hold tighter going to my locker just in case that asshole Soldersen is waiting by a classroom, gnawing about nothing with some dick friends, ever-ready to knock my books flying all down the hall with that quick sucker punch from behind. He’ll have some witty quip he’s probably worked on all night like, hey goof… which twin are ya, number 1 or number do-do? to which he’d snicker like he’d just dropped a big one. Ha! I’d laugh and scramble for my books, relieved I wasn’t walking with my brother, who would have painted the lockers with old Soldersen or tried to anyway… Soldersen’s a big guy but Gram would have gone for it… I bet he would have.
Sometimes I see Joanne French hanging around the office bulletin board with some other Wellington Crescent girls, not reading messages or nothing, just posing there so natural like, as if they’re storefront models on display for the rest of us to admire as we float by, their wide fixed eyes transmitting, ”yeah look, but don’t even think about touching” even though I bet that’s what they’re thinking in their stupid heads. They are kind of cool though I’ll admit…pretty types with perfect angles and poise and judicial daddies and shade tree homes, holding their books preciously against their tight bodies as if they’re into academics or something. They’re all cheerleader types… except that short dark haired girl with the Cher bangs and almond eyes; I don’t know her name but I saw her look at me once, not in a weird sort of way either but like she could almost talk to me if she chose to slip away from the others who only want the perfect square jaw dopes like Soldersen who I bet wouldn’t know what to do with a girl anyway, given half a chance.
Sometimes I see Joanne French hanging around the office bulletin board with some other Wellington Crescent girls, not reading messages or nothing, just posing there so natural like, as if they’re storefront models on display for the rest of us to admire as we float by, their wide fixed eyes transmitting, ”yeah look, but don’t even think about touching” even though I bet that’s what they’re thinking in their stupid heads. They are kind of cool though I’ll admit…pretty types with perfect angles and poise and judicial daddies and shade tree homes, holding their books preciously against their tight bodies as if they’re into academics or something. They’re all cheerleader types… except that short dark haired girl with the Cher bangs and almond eyes; I don’t know her name but I saw her look at me once, not in a weird sort of way either but like she could almost talk to me if she chose to slip away from the others who only want the perfect square jaw dopes like Soldersen who I bet wouldn’t know what to do with a girl anyway, given half a chance.
Jan 30, 2011
Six Hours
First Hour
Rounding the high curve along the front beach access, I come upon it.
There are perhaps fifty cars, stopped dead in traffic, more on the opposite side of the double yellow disappearing east. The occupants are abandoning them, running toward the water. There, the wind blows our bodies and scatters our thoughts but we sway like dazed birds, helpless to move, our eyes on the horizon. A smudge the color of tobacco streaks along the rim of the world, blending the flat white sky mocha like a wet watercolor landscape. Then the air ‘whumpts’ and ‘chops’ all around us with giant noise and metal as military helicopters buzz overhead and dart away toward the sun.
Second Hour
We stare, uncomprehending. We wait for a signal from some authority to tell us what’s happening; that it’s a dream, a government exercise perhaps. The signal doesn’t come. Hundreds of people are arriving, drawn to the water’s edge only to collapse in the sand. My cell phone shakes; it’s my father’s voice calling my name - so far away - with long distance crackle and panic on the line. I can hear Mom in the background saying the picture is snowy - on all the news stations - and then there is a muffling sound and she is on, weeping softly “are – you - alright?” and the phone goes dead.
Third Hour
The helicopters shoot past and skim a few hundred yards off shore. They don’t venture toward the horizon anymore; the first ones that did vanished… simple as that. No explosion… no attack… just gone… as if absorbed by the air. The beach is now standing room only, the air heavy, humid and humming as we watch the spectacle. Along the horizon, long black mirrored cylinders rotate, smooth and seamless like cigar tubes, cylinders the size of aircraft carriers, hundreds of them, more. They sit silent, suspended above the water.
Fourth Hour
The man next to me is sobbing. He whispers, “this can’t… it can’t.” He stands in an open stance, his legs apart, a small pistol quivering in a two handed grip, the front of his jeans soaked in urine. Along the darkened rim, the cylinders double in size, then triple as if magnified, rising up like sudden skyscrapers, blotting out the sky. The sobbing man puts the gun to his head and I don’t stop him. Instead, I run.
Fifth Hour
The mind falters when overwhelmed. It staggers, protects… closes down. I wonder if I will ever be open again. I don’t know my own name. Some primordial instinct instructs me to burrow away… to hide in this expansive house nestled in along the dunes. Like a badger, I burrow deep in a dark downstairs closet, clawing under fallen wardrobe, unable to look past neither the drawn drapes nor the next ticking second.
Sixth Hour
They are upstairs. I can hear them ‘clicking’ across the floor. It is a sound I can’t describe. They are like music, a musty melody worming inside my head, slightly nauseating, pleasing. That could be a good thing, I whisper to no one… it can... it will. It is.
Rounding the high curve along the front beach access, I come upon it.
There are perhaps fifty cars, stopped dead in traffic, more on the opposite side of the double yellow disappearing east. The occupants are abandoning them, running toward the water. There, the wind blows our bodies and scatters our thoughts but we sway like dazed birds, helpless to move, our eyes on the horizon. A smudge the color of tobacco streaks along the rim of the world, blending the flat white sky mocha like a wet watercolor landscape. Then the air ‘whumpts’ and ‘chops’ all around us with giant noise and metal as military helicopters buzz overhead and dart away toward the sun.
Second Hour
We stare, uncomprehending. We wait for a signal from some authority to tell us what’s happening; that it’s a dream, a government exercise perhaps. The signal doesn’t come. Hundreds of people are arriving, drawn to the water’s edge only to collapse in the sand. My cell phone shakes; it’s my father’s voice calling my name - so far away - with long distance crackle and panic on the line. I can hear Mom in the background saying the picture is snowy - on all the news stations - and then there is a muffling sound and she is on, weeping softly “are – you - alright?” and the phone goes dead.
Third Hour
The helicopters shoot past and skim a few hundred yards off shore. They don’t venture toward the horizon anymore; the first ones that did vanished… simple as that. No explosion… no attack… just gone… as if absorbed by the air. The beach is now standing room only, the air heavy, humid and humming as we watch the spectacle. Along the horizon, long black mirrored cylinders rotate, smooth and seamless like cigar tubes, cylinders the size of aircraft carriers, hundreds of them, more. They sit silent, suspended above the water.
Fourth Hour
The man next to me is sobbing. He whispers, “this can’t… it can’t.” He stands in an open stance, his legs apart, a small pistol quivering in a two handed grip, the front of his jeans soaked in urine. Along the darkened rim, the cylinders double in size, then triple as if magnified, rising up like sudden skyscrapers, blotting out the sky. The sobbing man puts the gun to his head and I don’t stop him. Instead, I run.
Fifth Hour
The mind falters when overwhelmed. It staggers, protects… closes down. I wonder if I will ever be open again. I don’t know my own name. Some primordial instinct instructs me to burrow away… to hide in this expansive house nestled in along the dunes. Like a badger, I burrow deep in a dark downstairs closet, clawing under fallen wardrobe, unable to look past neither the drawn drapes nor the next ticking second.
Sixth Hour
They are upstairs. I can hear them ‘clicking’ across the floor. It is a sound I can’t describe. They are like music, a musty melody worming inside my head, slightly nauseating, pleasing. That could be a good thing, I whisper to no one… it can... it will. It is.
Jan 26, 2011
Ivory Wave
When Clara Early hears her grandson Boyd is in the Itawamba County emergency room mindlessly raving about man-eating lobsters, she isn’t surprised. She is told he arrived drenched like a drowned rat and not from any immediate downpour.
“The young man’s sweatin’ buckets and his hearts racin’ like Nascar,” the resident, a Dr. Stockwell says. “Got some cuts on his face too. He’s in and out of delirium. Best we keep him overnight for observation.”
“And what exactly caused this?” Clara asks, knowing full well the answer.
“Well, we’ve seen a lot of this lately. It’s called ‘Red Dove’. It’s a bath salt kids are buying legally, then smoking and snorting. Vanilla Sky. Ivory Wave… got different names. It can cause paranoia, hallucinations… suicidal thoughts.”
“And it’s legal?”
“Yup,” Dr. Stockwell says, sighing. “At least for a while until the government clamps down… or enough people die.”
Returning home, Clara storms Boyd’s bedroom. “I may be old but I ain’t stupid,“ she hisses. In the closet, she finds the duffel bag Boyd has poorly tried to hide and begins to pull the packets out. There are over a hundred, labeled Ivory Wave. Clara’s bones crack. Her spindly fingers ache from arthritis that has set in over the years and her slowly deteriorating hip stabs and stings. “Sixty-eight and here’s what I got,” she says to Raymond, her gray Tabby who has followed her into the room.
“A no good grandson living and stealing from me. Spending it on this. No more.”
The bathroom steams tropical. Clara dips a stubby toe into the hot bath water and stirs it about. On the floor, empty packets of bath salt lay scattered like weekend sunbathers. An intoxicating aroma hangs in the thickening air.
“Ivory Wave?” she murmurs. “Pure Paradise I’d say.”
She drops her robe, averting her eyes from the aged and sagging reflection in the mirror and lowers herself into the tub. Easing back, she closes her eyes, her body; a round egg coming to a simmering boil. Her fingers gently tap and play along the surface like piano keys creating snickering splashes. She imagines little fish jumping in the now sudsy foam. She smiles and takes in a deep breath. “Now this, I deserve.”
It is then she feels a change. Opening her eyes, her breasts poke the surface like a rising archipelago. They seem firmer - feel firmer - younger, the brown areola strangely now the color of corral. Below, there is a tingling. Her bottom shifts down like a sunken ship on the ocean floor and between her thighs, a deeper stirring begins. Her mind reels in darkness, a switch turning off. Something slithers over her hip and between her thighs along the seaweed trench. The bathroom is burning a fever. Clara struggles, her mouth puckering like a dying fish. Her foot rises through the suds. It is black; the toes melded together, a curved black fin. It cuts the water, pushing an ivory wave back and forth, back and forth. She tries to scream but she has no voice. As her eyes roll white, she sees the scissors next to the tub, their silver edges serrated like shark teeth. She grabs it and begins to stab.
Boyd arrives home around two. He is dull and annoyed. He notices the open bathroom door. He notices the glistening red packets, pink fur on the floor, the bathtub crimson. He never notices her standing behind the door.
“The young man’s sweatin’ buckets and his hearts racin’ like Nascar,” the resident, a Dr. Stockwell says. “Got some cuts on his face too. He’s in and out of delirium. Best we keep him overnight for observation.”
“And what exactly caused this?” Clara asks, knowing full well the answer.
“Well, we’ve seen a lot of this lately. It’s called ‘Red Dove’. It’s a bath salt kids are buying legally, then smoking and snorting. Vanilla Sky. Ivory Wave… got different names. It can cause paranoia, hallucinations… suicidal thoughts.”
“And it’s legal?”
“Yup,” Dr. Stockwell says, sighing. “At least for a while until the government clamps down… or enough people die.”
Returning home, Clara storms Boyd’s bedroom. “I may be old but I ain’t stupid,“ she hisses. In the closet, she finds the duffel bag Boyd has poorly tried to hide and begins to pull the packets out. There are over a hundred, labeled Ivory Wave. Clara’s bones crack. Her spindly fingers ache from arthritis that has set in over the years and her slowly deteriorating hip stabs and stings. “Sixty-eight and here’s what I got,” she says to Raymond, her gray Tabby who has followed her into the room.
“A no good grandson living and stealing from me. Spending it on this. No more.”
The bathroom steams tropical. Clara dips a stubby toe into the hot bath water and stirs it about. On the floor, empty packets of bath salt lay scattered like weekend sunbathers. An intoxicating aroma hangs in the thickening air.
“Ivory Wave?” she murmurs. “Pure Paradise I’d say.”
She drops her robe, averting her eyes from the aged and sagging reflection in the mirror and lowers herself into the tub. Easing back, she closes her eyes, her body; a round egg coming to a simmering boil. Her fingers gently tap and play along the surface like piano keys creating snickering splashes. She imagines little fish jumping in the now sudsy foam. She smiles and takes in a deep breath. “Now this, I deserve.”
It is then she feels a change. Opening her eyes, her breasts poke the surface like a rising archipelago. They seem firmer - feel firmer - younger, the brown areola strangely now the color of corral. Below, there is a tingling. Her bottom shifts down like a sunken ship on the ocean floor and between her thighs, a deeper stirring begins. Her mind reels in darkness, a switch turning off. Something slithers over her hip and between her thighs along the seaweed trench. The bathroom is burning a fever. Clara struggles, her mouth puckering like a dying fish. Her foot rises through the suds. It is black; the toes melded together, a curved black fin. It cuts the water, pushing an ivory wave back and forth, back and forth. She tries to scream but she has no voice. As her eyes roll white, she sees the scissors next to the tub, their silver edges serrated like shark teeth. She grabs it and begins to stab.
Boyd arrives home around two. He is dull and annoyed. He notices the open bathroom door. He notices the glistening red packets, pink fur on the floor, the bathtub crimson. He never notices her standing behind the door.
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